There I was. Standing in front of it. Looking up and beyond wondering how did it happen that I was right there at that moment? When I said my goodbyes, I left with a heart that was heavy and light at the same time and crying for endless nights.

Partings are hard, Partings mean it is the end and there would be no looking back. And when I said my farewell I made a promise to myself to look ahead and not turn even once. And yet here I was..

Do you know how it feels when you look at the past? A past that was full of promise, dreams, waiting in the wings, that hope of everything fresh and new as you are about to dive into it And what you hope would turn into something truly wonderful? Now what I was standing in front of was starkly different.

A silence, pin drop silence amidst the morning traffic that was slowly buzzing about. Do I dare get out of my car and confront it? It only takes a second to make a choice. I didn’t want to run away nor remain frozen and keep looking at it. So I did, I stepped out of the car and started walking up, slowly amidst the broken down walls, cold steel pillars imposing everything around it.

There it was, the promising wall of ‘Before I die’ where people could write what did they really want to do in life before their time on this earth ended. Now all that remained were pieces of it. Everything was gone except, that everything was still there too. It peeped out telling me about a great past through patches of mustard yellow colour we selected, Mario Miranda’s inspired sketches that filled the place years ago now showed itself in a bitter sweet way through open skies and broken down bricks.

I made my way and stood in centre of the ‘A/C area’, nothing but steel pillars and an open sky surrounding it. At the corner were two chairs that was an evidence a place existed bustling with people, food and music and two crazy foolish people thinking this was for life. Hell, this was their life, their heart, their blood, their sweat and tears.

I stood at the highest point of the place, everything was gone, strangely I felt like I was at the beginning when I first saw this place. Wild, open, plants, weeds, rocks, everything was the same. Was it 2009 or 2020? That look of wonder in me was the same. The dreams in me and my partners eyes were the same.

And at that moment it happened, I had tears rolling down my eyes, it was not joy, it was not sorrow, it is what it is. And I let it all go. Srini, my partner walked up smiling and said, ‘Can you imagine?‘ Yup now I truly can.

I realised that what we both did at that time was crazy, downright crazy, following our heart and emotions. Diving in, jumping in, putting everything at stake and not thinking about what next? Nothing except creating ‘Truffles’.

There I said it. I finally did and it’s been almost 2 years since I uttered that name when we left it. When we signed the papers to someone else to take it over, the rest was history. I ceased driving on that road, I would take roundabouts but avoid that road and if I had to drive by that road, I would look straight ahead. 

But destiny prevails and how. The supreme energy makes ways to show you what you want to avoid, makes you confront it and teaches you a lot. And I faced mine today.

Amidst the ruins, life was happening. I could see plants, fighting it’s way to live, to survive and then to thrive. I was looking around me teary eyed with creepers oozing out of rocks, our bricks, lush green plants when we planted it ages ago, reminding me of their existence.

I remembered someone really special said not a long time ago,’ See that tree? That beautiful tree that’s coming from those harsh rocks? Thriving and surviving in harsh conditions? It’s a big reminder to us about life, about our lives. We will time and again continue to face hardships, that’s what a human life is and through it all we must learn to survive, to grow, to thrive. ‘

My inner cleansing was truly and wholly completed. I looked at this space that was once called Truffles and now it was pure, it was nothingness, it was the way nature intended it and I saw new life sprouting all around it, reminding me of Mother Earth and her innumerable bounties.

And then I saw the stunning tree. This tree that has seen it all. Just like spring, bursting with flowers, blooming with happiness, saying it all comes back to this. ‘Shoonya’.